The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-07-05
FAILURE OF THE NATIONAL OPERA COM
PANY,

The National Opera Company has disbanded
under circumstances that indicate the practi-
cal failure of the enterprise No amount of
fine talk about the artistic success of the
undertaking counts for anything against the
fact that the management are owing several
months pay to most of the singers, and that
Theodore Thomas has placed his claim in the
hands of lawyer for collection. Whatever
the artistic success of the undertaking may
have been, the business end of it was fail
ure. This was doubtless due to the lack Of
good business sense in the organization and
management of the enterprise. This was
noticeable from the beginning. twas handi-
capped by the idea that there was an unlim-
tied bank account to draw upon, and that, no
matter what happened, the directors would
foot all bills and see it through. Many
enterprise of some promise has failed from the
same cause. Too much money is not always
desirable for infant enterprises. Better that
they should learn to stand alone and use
in others hands. Then this idea of
an unlimited bank account led to making the
organization of the National Opera Company
ridiculously large and expensive. Not to
speak of the singers and others who might be
considered necessary to such an organization,
there was an army of dead heads, hangers ON
and supernumeraries big enough to eat up
any bank account in the world. Half of
these genteel dead-heads had nothing to do,
and the other half assisted them. They
thought they wore developing musical culture
in America, when, in fact, they were only
developing the art of heavy standing around.
There never was more conspicuous lack of
business sense in the management of an
enterprise. But back of all this the National
Opera Company was organized on mistaken
idea It's declared purpose was to stimulate
musical culture in the United States
and develop American opera" And
how was it proposed to do thisf By
employing so-called American singers and
giving operas in English. The idea is absurd.
The way to stimulate musical culture is to
give the public frst-class music-the best
works of the best authors in the best style.
This the National Opera Company did not do.
Its best performances were scarcely good
second-rate. Judged by European standard,
they were not third-rate. We speak Of the
stage performance; the orchestral part was
frst-class. The organization of the company
was hampered by the idea Of employing only
so-called American singers. 1t would have
been better to have employed singers. A
singer is singer, no matter what language
he employs. Music has no language, or,
rather, it is its own language. There is no
such thing as American opera, and translating
a libretto from Italian, French or German into
English does not make it. We have no
distinctive school of American music vet,
and no American composer has yet produced
a sustained work at all approaching the class
ical. The idea of giving italian or German
opera in English words, and calling it American
opera, was fraud. For the interests of art,
it were much better to have them rendered by
competent artists in their mother tongue.